To give the quick scoop on the year: I’ve been busy. It’s not that annoying type of busy where you just want things to be over, it’s more like the type of busy where you don’t want things to end because they’ve been that good. That healthy stress, which pushes you to the limit, reveals things you never knew about yourself, and reveals the things you never thought you were capable of doing. That kind of busy.
The single thing which triggered this insane goulash of activity was a simple promise I made to myself. My New Year’s Resolution for 2010 was to follow through with my word. How could I ensure that I would follow through with this goal? I decided to support myself by setting up daily goals which I HAVE to complete by the end of the night. I keep note of these goals in a “magical book” I have, and anything that is written in that book NEEDS to be done; if I know I cannot commit to something for the day, I don’t write it in. These goals range from anything personal, work related or financial (for example), and even things like being aware of my character traits, conversations with people, or which types of moods I’d like to portray (proactive, happy, empathy etc) will be included in the book.Furthermore, I have set up monthly goals: these make things very interesting! My monthly goals incorporate a slightly longer long term goal, which I would like to incorporate in my life for a very long time. They say that it takes 21 days for something to become a habit, so I’m kind of working off of that. Many of my daily goals, support my monthly goals, and my monthly goals support my yearly goal. No one goal is more important than the other because they all involve following through with my word TO MYSELF FIRST and therefore to others.
My monthly goal for January was to join an activist group, my February goal was to eat healthier, and now my March goal is to write in this blog every day. Just so you know, my January and February goals were incredibly successful, and because I’m still actively involved in these groups and have incorporated a much healthier diet I will discuss them further in detail as my day’s this month call for me to bring my activity up.
That’s my foreword, now here’s my first entry of the month:
This is the first day of March.
My calendar for this month has been growing since the 3rd week of February. I remember back then it was pretty empty, now there is pencil scribbled in almost every day of the week. I like that. Today was the end of the second quarter of my Legacy grant for my job at AltaMed Health Services. For those of you who don’t know, Legacy is most known for being the organization which brings you the well known truth.com commercials. I’m under a grant from them to create a tobacco cessation program, which will be completely institutionalized into the non-profit I work for by the time my term is over. My coworker and I created a class we call “Tobacco 101”, a culturally sensitive course aimed at assessing individual’s readiness to quit. We are receiving patient referrals from doctors at our clinics, to attend our class. Once they attend we refer them to a third party provider that can offer them a full series 7 or 8 week quit program. Today we presented that class to the staff…
It did not go as well as I wanted but the staff said they enjoyed it. I was able to get a sense of what could be added, and what I should change. I’m happy members of the staff were my guinea pigs. I teach my first class to methadone patients in 2 weeks, and teach the same class in Spanish in 3 weeks. We’ll leave it at that.
The highlight of my day was after work when I had a meeting with the Radical Women’s group at a pie shop. I first learned about the group when I saw an ad on kpfk radio for an event called “The Myth of a Post-Racial Society” and since have kept in contact with the group members. They are incredibly intelligent Freedom Socialists with a great spirit for activism. We’ve been reading Lenin’s “The State and Revolution”. I initially met the well known leader of the group, Muffy, during a protest for immigration rights in January and again at another protest against U.S. presence in Haiti. I randomly met another one of their other members at a Little Rock 9 talk with Terrance Robertson (one of the 9 students who was escorted to one of the first non-segregated schools by the military).
This weekly book club is exactly what I’ve been looking for since I returned from Ecuador. A setting where I could sit down with a group of people to discuss issues which were politically relevant to me as an activist. We spent about two hours discussing the third chapter of the book and the background knowledge necessary to understand. The Paris Commune never seemed as important to me as it did today. That has been my experience with most things lately, I told Luma, the woman facilitating the meeting. Since I’ve realized my place in the world, the importance of my role in the world, and how the world affects me, history has taken on a new form. I feel like I will grow so much with this group and gain a much better understanding of political science and how it relates to the important struggles of marginalized groups, particularly the African American struggle for civil rights. I’m really looking forward to seeing where I go with them.
*On a random side note, check my rank out for my 10K run on Sunday night*
http://www.resultsbyprimetime.com/RESULTS%20PAGES/FEB10/CHINATOWN/fire_10k_age_10.htm
On a sadder note check out the shoes I fricken ran in! I payed $7 for them in China town back in November (and yes, they were talking before I even started the 10k- probably not the healthiest for my joints but it was all I had). This brother is broooooke.
Luckily, I just got some new running shoes. Check these babies out!
-Peace to Middle East
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